Tiny Hike Grassroots Co-op

    Empowering Kids: Encouraging Healthy Relationships and Improving Social Skills As a mom of a preschooler, I understand the challenge of juggling roles; a teacher, personal chief,  chauffeur, speech therapist, event planner and coordinator, cleaning staff, toy maker, game inventor, however, they have one crucial thing in common - facilitating healthy relationships. These relationships, whether with neighbors, colleagues, or our own children, are key to a functioning society.   In the article "How to Help Kids Navigate Friendships and Peer Relationships" by Tory DeAngelis  ( read the article here ), Mitch Prinstein, PhD, chief science officer at APA, states that kids who are well-liked by classmates fare better in life. They have a reduced likelihood of adopting aggressive behavior or struggling with low self-confidence. Generally, it's essential to start teaching healthy social skills from toddlerhood. Friendship skills are crucial, in addition to understandi...

Inspired by the blossoming curiosity of children, we've decided to start a homeschooling co-op focusing on preschool-aged kids. We believe in the idea of cooperative learning. We also would like to support the broader k-12 homeschooling community by offering skill share workshops both virtually and in-person. In our Co-op, we would like to take turns leading various activities or learning sessions, sharing our unique talents, and creating a nurturing environment for our kids of all ages. We would like to jointly and/or independently plan hiking trails, playdates, backyard explorations, science and/or sport activities, to name a few out of the many options for social and learning opportunities.   The Co-op would also provide parents with an opportunity to share knowledge, strategies, resources, and experiences about homeschooling. The pleasure of having shared accomplishments and challenges is something that we believe better equips us on the educating journey. As a new co-op ...

    We have been nature-based wild learning without a set curriculum for our little one. We started with the idea of educational hikes. I know that "official" homeschooling starts with kindergarten and the legal obligation for reporting to a school district. For preschool age children, we are considered by some to be "considering to" homeschool. Meanwhile, we are not just considering but are actively educating through instruction, modeled behavior, research, hands-on experience, and the good o' fashioned trial and error. Our homeschooling preschool activities usually start after breakfast. We do an art or play-based activity to welcome the day. We look through books to build vocabulary. We listen to classical music. And once an  adventurous mood sets in we go outside around noon, right after our lunch. We step out into the wilderness of our backyard to fly a kite, play with sand, water our two garden beds of growing mystery plants that have taken root from being...

  We've taken a year long break to grow our family, learn new skills, and explore new terrain. Since moving across the street from our home state to a new state, we've stayed fairy local to Blackstone Valley. We've found tiny trails, built garden beds, gotten into poison ivy, build our own furniture, enjoyed a our wood burning stove, and search for professional support for speech development. Our homeschooling became more established as we found our flow in going to  library events, playgrounds, bike paths, meet ups, unstructured play, and interest based activities. My favorite part is to see how many crafts we can engineer given a new interest. There was the phase of the airplanes, trains, rockets, dinosaurs, bugs, butterflies and moths, plants and flowers, sandbox and mud. Nature has always been there for our wild learning. We are now ready for our new chapter in growing within a community.

  Tiny Hike Autumn 2022 With the change of season the format for signing up process for meet-up  will also change. This change includes:  No longer Drop-In. Registration is required.  No longer doing RSVPs by email or FB DM. Discord server instead. This change reflects good practice for online safety. Registration will be on our Discord server. Discord is a free service - it's free to create an account and it's a free app. We've set up a chat server for participating families to brainstorm activities around themes, get to know each other before heading out on the trail, address stranger danger, and for posting meet up times/locations. As part of registration there is a required virtual meet n' greet. Not everyone uses  mainstream social media platforms (FB, IG, Twitter) so we're going off the beaten path. Discord allows us to uses multiple verification. We want our and your participating Tiny Hikers to be safe and for parents/guardians to have some peace of mind...

   Heatwaves, Ticks & New Trails  We're half way through the summer now. It was our hope that we'd get back on the trail and do some tiny hike exploration back in spring. There have been some challenges and some new opportunities. One of those challenges are the ticks. Ah! They are everywhere - in the yard, in the bush, at the outside grassy patch of our library. We've been vigilant, use our DEET, do daily full body checks, but it has been keeping us from spending more time exploring state parks. The high heat days are too much for our tiny hiker, he prefers to stay in the shade and play with water. Forests are great for this, they do keep you cool. Which brings me to finding new trails for meet ups, that I haven't found yet. This hasn't stopped us though, we've discovered a local conservation area with a tiny trail for a tiny hiker. Also, the Blackstone Bike Path that does over the Blackstone River. We've seen so many different types of birds, frogs, ch...

  This spring our new adventures take us from MetroWest Massachusetts to Northern Rhode Island! We're looking forward to new trails, warmer weather and, as always, wild learning. The schedule for May-June  locations and learning themes is coming soon. Meanwhile, this week we're focusing on our local lawn grass -  ryegrass, bluegrass, tall fescue, and fine fescue. We've also spotted lots of clovers 🍀